Well, I Changed the Pickups in my Casino Today...

[Mossman]

Since I'm at a stand-still with the Ibanez pickup swap until the height adjustment screws that @tobijohn sent me arrive, I decided to kill an afternoon swapping the pickups on my Casino. I wasn't really planning to do it. I had had the stock pickups rewound by @Buddha Pickups, and they sounded great. After I replaced the stock speaker in my SCX2 with a Weber, they sounded even better! Now, I usually adhere to the philosophy of: "if a guitar sounds good already, don't mess with it", but I've had these Gibson P90s in a drawer for some time, and I just couldn't resist the curiosity to hear what they sound like in the Casino. I used to own an Elitist Casino, which came stock with Gibson P90s, and I thought maybe if I put a set of Gibson P90s in this guitar, that would make it kind of a poor-man's Elitist.

I've also been wanting to replace the chromed metal pickup covers with black plastic ones for some time, and finally found a set that would work with the Casino, but I ran into a problem that for some reason didn't even occur to me until I put the Gibson pickup in the dog-ear cover:

This is a soap-bar P90, not a Dog-Ear P90! How am I going to attach the cover to the pickup?? I know! I'll attach it with screws, the way you do with a soap-bar cover!

But wait, these covers have no screw holes! Oh noooos!

Ok, I can drill holes in the covers for the screws, but that's a real dicey operation. These holes would have to be bang-on centered in between the holes for the pole pieces. There's just barely enough clearance between the pole-pieces for the screw head to fit between them, so there's like ZERO margin for error. If the holes are off just the slightest bit, then the head of the mounting screw will hit one of the pole-pieces to the left or right of it and won't set flush to the cover.

I figured I could use the holes in the pickups as a guide for the drill bit, but I found there was a bit of wiggle room in the hole, and I couldn't be sure if the bit was positioned properly. If I used a bigger drill bit, it wouldn't be able to wiggle around in the hole as much, and I'd get more accurate placement, but I was afraid the hole it would make would be too big... Then I had an idea... I could use the bigger bit to start a hole, and make divot that I could use to position the smaller bit.

The smaller bit dropped right in there and I completed the holes... Placement was just about perfect.

I repeated the procedure on the other cover, and I was back in bidness... I also painted the heads of the mounting screws black so they would blend in better. Here it is installed:

While the pickup covers I got were angled correctly for the Casino, I knew they weren't gong to be tall enough, so I ordered a set of black, dog-ear P90 shims in various thicknesses from Mojotone, and they worked out great. They didn't exactly match the shape of the dog-ears of the cover, but you can't even tell unless you're a couple inches away from it. It doesn't bother me.

Here's the guitar strung up with pickups installed. I really prefer the look of the black covers over the chrome ones. I left the knobs off because I want to get a set of black reflector knobs to replace the gold ones.

Ok, pretty good so far, but how do they sound?

Well.... Not bad... But not what I was expecting.

These pickups are very strong in the mids. The sound is very dense and solid. It hits you like a load of bricks, and I'm sure they would sound fantastic at high gain, but this is not a high-gain guitar! If these were in a Les Paul Junior or a Special, it would be a world-beater, but they don't have any of the chime, sparkle or depth that Tim's rewinds have, so I'm gpoing to put them back in, and I'll put the Gibsons in the P90 baritone Strat that I'm building. I'd like to still use the black covers, but there's an awful lot of solder holding these pickups in the chrome covers, and I don't know if I want to wrangle with that.

I also just realized that it's probably impossible to mount a plastic cover to these anyway, as there's no way to attach the tabs to the covers, and there are no holes in these pickups for mounting with screws. So unless I want to drill two screw-holes through these pickups (I don't, really), I guess I'm stuck with the chrome covers.

[Buddha Pickups]

The tab/cover solder connection on these pickups give me fits. It's a ton of solder and it's very hard to get it disconnected, takes a very hot iron.

You can absolutely use dogear plastic covers with them though if u want...u just need to unsolder the cover/tab connection and clean up the tabs.
You'll need 50mm bridge and 47.5mm neck covers. The neck cover tends to run about $10.

I have a ton of brass p90 covers that you could paint black but they're all 50mm/bridges only.

And also, the Chinese have been known to superglue a soapbar p90/baseplate into a dogear cover....not sure how long it'll hold up but cheap casino pickups with silver plastic covers are sometimes like this.

[Partscaster]

Good decision breakdown. My mind was following the same path with bigger bit to lay down a centered indentation.

[Mossman]

The tab/cover solder connection on these pickups give me fits. It's a ton of solder and it's very hard to get it disconnected, takes a very hot iron.

You can absolutely use dogear plastic covers with them though if u want...u just need to unsolder the cover/tab connection and clean up the tabs.
You'll need 50mm bridge and 47.5mm neck covers. The neck cover tends to run about $10.

I have a ton of brass p90 covers that you could paint black but they're all 50mm/bridges only.

And also, the Chinese have been known to superglue a soapbar p90/baseplate into a dogear cover....not sure how long it'll hold up but cheap casino pickups with silver plastic covers are sometimes like this.

I don't really see how you can attach a plastic cover to this, other than to glue it on. Either that, or use mounting screws in the middle of the pickup, like I did with the Gibsons. There are holes in the base-plate where the mounting screws would go, but there seems to be a sheet of metal underneath.

I suppose I could just pop through that with a drill on the top and bottom (assuming the bobbin is hollow), but I doubt the screws will thread to that.

I also didn't realize the two pickups have different spacing (the Gibson P90s are both 49.2mm). I had a hard enough time finding covers that were slanted correctly for the Casino and fit the Gibson pickups. I'm sure I never saw a set with 47.5mm spacing, and certainly no sets that had 47.5 and 50mm spacing... What you usually see are sets that are either both 49.2mm or both are 50mm. Where can I get covers that are 47.5?

You would think this wouldn't be such a difficult item to find. The Casino has been one of Epiphone's highest-selling guitars for over 20 years. It's not like there isn't a market for it. I considered painting the stock covers, but as far as I know, there's no paint that sticks to chrome.

[Buddha Pickups]

The tab/cover solder connection on these pickups give me fits. It's a ton of solder and it's very hard to get it disconnected, takes a very hot iron.

You can absolutely use dogear plastic covers with them though if u want...u just need to unsolder the cover/tab connection and clean up the tabs.
You'll need 50mm bridge and 47.5mm neck covers. The neck cover tends to run about $10.

I have a ton of brass p90 covers that you could paint black but they're all 50mm/bridges only.

And also, the Chinese have been known to superglue a soapbar p90/baseplate into a dogear cover....not sure how long it'll hold up but cheap casino pickups with silver plastic covers are sometimes like this.

I don't really see how you can attach a plastic cover to this, other than to glue it on. Either that, or use mounting screws in the middle of the pickup, like I did with the Gibsons. There are holes in the base-plate where the mounting screws would go, but there seems to be a sheet of metal underneath.


buddha rewind holes.jpg


I suppose I could just pop through that with a drill on the top and bottom (assuming the bobbin is hollow), but I doubt the screws will thread to that.

I also didn't realize the two pickups have different spacing (the Gibson P90s are both 49.2mm). I had a hard enough time finding covers that were slanted correctly for the Casino and fit the Gibson pickups. I'm sure I never saw a set with 47.5mm spacing, and certainly no sets that had 47.5 and 50mm spacing... What you usually see are sets that are either both 49.2mm or both are 50mm. Where can I get covers that are 47.5?

You would think this wouldn't be such a difficult item to find. The Casino has been one of Epiphone's highest-selling guitars for over 20 years. It's not like there isn't a market for it. I considered painting the stock covers, but as far as I know, there's no paint that sticks to chrome.

You only need the mounting screws out on the ears to hold the cover to the pickup....you had to do the screw through the pickup with the gibsons cause the baseplate was a soapbar baseplate, without the tabs..so the pickup would've just dropped...dogear p90s have the tabs on each end so it sits in the opening. You then lay the cover on top of it and screw them both to the body with the 2 small mounting screws out on the ears....

The neck covers are sold by fralin and Angela and I think allparts and wd

[Mossman]

Good decision breakdown. My mind was following the same path with bigger bit to lay down a centered indentation.

Thanks. Sometimes my brain works pretty good...

Sometimes.

[Mossman]

You only need the mounting screws out on the ears to hold the cover to the pickup....you had to do the screw through the pickup with the gibsons cause the baseplate was a soapbar baseplate, without the tabs..so the pickup would've just dropped...dogear p90s have the tabs on each end so it sits in the opening. You then lay the cover on top of it and screw them both to the body with the 2 small mounting screws out on the ears....

The neck covers are sold by fralin and Angela and I think allparts and wd

Right... The tabs would get sandwiched between the cover and the body. I was so single-minded about attaching the pickup to the cover, I hadn't considered that. I just saw that the tabs were split and fell wide of the screw hole, and thought: "Well, it won't get attached that way".

I've seen the Allparts covers, and I've seen covers on ebay that have 47.5mm spacing, but they're not slanted. At this point, I'm not even sure how much of a problem that would present. I completely forgot about Angela... I know they used to have covers for the Casino, but every time I looked there (back before I sent you the pickups to be rewound), they were always out of stock, so I put them out of my mind.

At any rate, I think I'm going to just live with the metal covers. I tried melting that solder a few minutes ago, and with my soldering station at maximum temperature (896°F), it was still tough getting the solder to melt. By the time I started making minor progress, a little drip of melted wax came out of the casing, so I immediately stopped what I was doing. I think the only way I can get these pickups out without ruining them is to cut them loose.

[Rollin Hand]

Well, it was always a gamble to take out those rewinds. A real roll of the dice. I would have bet you would like the Buddhas better. Too bad the black covers don't seem to be in the cards.

[Mossman]

Well, it was always a gamble to take out those rewinds. A real roll of the dice. I would have bet you would like the Buddhas better. Too bad the black covers don't seem to be in the cards.

I was fully in the camp of: "don't change the Buddhas" for the longest time. I've had those Gibson pickups for about four years or so. I got them after Tim did the re-wind, and I only bought them because it was a smoking deal. Orphan pickups for some future project... But then one day I was looking at the guitar, and started thinking about changing the covers again.... and the knobs.... and I knew how hard it would be to find the correct black plastic covers that would fit the Casino pickups, but I knew where I could get them for the Gibsons... I also knew that if I never found out what the Gibson pickups sound like in the Casino, my curiosity would probably never rest. My hope was that the Gibsons would sound similar to Tim's re-winds, but with just a little bit "more". More of what, exactly? I don't know. The rewinds sound great... They're not lacking a thing. But that's how I would describe the difference between my old Korean Casino and my Elitist. The Elitist didn't blow the MIK out of the water. Build-wise, it did, but in terms of how the two guitars sounded, It wasn't a night-and-day difference. They sounded very similar, but the Elitist had just a little "more". A little more grunt, a little more "push". It sounded bigger and tighter than the Korean, but it still had the same chime and sparkle. These pickups that I put in this here Casino do not. They've got a lot of grunt, but no sparkle, no depth.

@Buddha Pickups rules!

So now my curiosity has been sated, the matter has been settled, and it only cost me a couple hours of my time. Actually, I think I'm getting better at swapping pickups in hollow-bodies... I always have it built up in my head as this big, arduous project, but both the Ibanez and the Casino went pretty quickly, and by the numbers, and everything worked when I put it all back together. I didn't have to put on my Sunday swearing clothes on once!

[Mossman]

I got the black reflector knobs that I ordered, and took a few pics as a last look at the Casino with black pickups before I put the rewinds back in:

[redman]

That's a great looking guitar I would like to hear it with those P90's

I bought a used MIK PRS SE Zach Myers semi-hollow a couple of weeks ago and don't like the pups. I have a bunch of pups a set of @andrewsrea wound, a set of SD Pearly Gates, SD hot rodded JB/Jazz these are in a Standard 24 I'm selling and some others but I don't know what will work best in a semi-hollow I may end up changing them out a few times.

[Buddha Pickups]

I'll look around and see if I can find one of those covers.
Plastic covers would open up the sound on those rewind even more
The big thick metal covers rob some high end

[Mossman]

That's a great looking guitar I would like to hear it with those P90's

I bought a used MIK PRS SE Zach Myers semi-hollow a couple of weeks ago and don't like the pups. I have a bunch of pups a set of @andrewsrea wound, a set of SD Pearly Gates, SD hot rodded JB/Jazz these are in a Standard 24 I'm selling and some others but I don't know what will work best in a semi-hollow I may end up changing them out a few times.

If it were me, I'd go with Rob's pickups. I'm not really a big Seymour Duncan fan. I wouldn't say they sound bad, but every time I've put a set of SDs in a guitar or bass, I end up taking them out, and liking the replacements (whatever that may be) better. I've got some GFS pickups that I like better than the SDs they replaced... but that's just me.

[Mossman]

I'll look around and see if I can find one of those covers.
Plastic covers would open up the sound on those rewind even more
The big thick metal covers rob some high end

Thanks Tim... I've been thinking about the increase in brightness that plastic covers will bring. Do you think it will be significant? I've A/B'd humbuckers with and without covers and found the difference to be very subtle. These pickups seem plenty bright even with the metal covers.

[Buddha Pickups]

I'll look around and see if I can find one of those covers.
Plastic covers would open up the sound on those rewind even more
The big thick metal covers rob some high end

Thanks Tim... I've been thinking about the increase in brightness that plastic covers will bring. Do you think it will be significant? I've A/B'd humbuckers with and without covers and found the difference to be very subtle. These pickups seem plenty bright even with the metal covers.

To be honest, with handwound pickups it probably won't make a huge difference...but if you were swapping plastic covers onto the stock pickups, it would brighten them up a hair as they're so muddy, not having all that metal in the signal will clear it up a hair.
If you have plenty of high end response already, as you should with a handwound pickup, don't worry about it unless it's for cosmetic purposes

[Mossman]

I'll look around and see if I can find one of those covers.
Plastic covers would open up the sound on those rewind even more
The big thick metal covers rob some high end

Thanks Tim... I've been thinking about the increase in brightness that plastic covers will bring. Do you think it will be significant? I've A/B'd humbuckers with and without covers and found the difference to be very subtle. These pickups seem plenty bright even with the metal covers.

To be honest, with handwound pickups it probably won't make a huge difference...but if you were swapping plastic covers onto the stock pickups, it would brighten them up a hair as they're so muddy, not having all that metal in the signal will clear it up a hair.
If you have plenty of high end response already, as you should with a handwound pickup, don't worry about it unless it's for cosmetic purposes

That's all it would be about at this point. In fact, I was using that reasoning to feel better about keeping them in the metal covers (e.g.; "That's ok... They'd probably be too bright with the plastic covers anyway").

Do you know that Epiphone is still over-winding those suckers? In my search for plastic covers I came across a few posts on other forums where people were complaining about what a hot mess the stock pickups are (a lot of people recommended putting plastic covers on them, failing a re-wind). But I guess Epiphone backed it down to about 11k, instead of 13k, like mine were. It doesn't make any sense. They've got the "Worn" Casino series now (which is $200 cheaper than the standard Casino), and those have "Pro P90s", but they're still putting those generic, garbage pickups in the more expensive model. The Pros sound really good. I put a set in my P90 Furrian and it's one of my favorite guitars. They sound great in the 339, too. The build quality of the Casinos coming out in the last few years are a big step up from the Korean ones (and WAY better than the guitars they were churning out in the early years of their Chinese operation), I have no idea why they would ham-string that guitar by continuing to put shite pickups in them.

[Buddha Pickups]

Thanks Tim... I've been thinking about the increase in brightness that plastic covers will bring. Do you think it will be significant? I've A/B'd humbuckers with and without covers and found the difference to be very subtle. These pickups seem plenty bright even with the metal covers.

To be honest, with handwound pickups it probably won't make a huge difference...but if you were swapping plastic covers onto the stock pickups, it would brighten them up a hair as they're so muddy, not having all that metal in the signal will clear it up a hair.
If you have plenty of high end response already, as you should with a handwound pickup, don't worry about it unless it's for cosmetic purposes

That's all it would be about at this point. In fact, I was using that reasoning to feel better about keeping them in the metal covers (e.g.; "That's ok... They'd probably be too bright with the plastic covers anyway").

Do you know that Epiphone is still over-winding those suckers? In my search for plastic covers I came across a few posts on other forums where people were complaining about what a hot mess the stock pickups are (a lot of people recommended putting plastic covers on them, failing a re-wind). But I guess Epiphone backed it down to about 11k, instead of 13k, like mine were. It doesn't make any sense. They've got the "Worn" Casino series now (which is $200 cheaper than the standard Casino), and those have "Pro P90s", but they're still putting those generic, garbage pickups in the more expensive model. The Pros sound really good. I put a set in my P90 Furrian and it's one of my favorite guitars. They sound great in the 339, too. The build quality of the Casinos coming out in the last few years are a big step up from the Korean ones (and WAY better than the guitars they were churning out in the early years of their Chinese operation), I have no idea why they would ham-string that guitar by continuing to put shite pickups in them.

And any pickup winder will tell you, the more you overwind a pickup, especially with thinner wire, you'll end up with more mud and extra bass.

I always wanted to try one of those smaller casinos but never did.
I have a Chinese casino that I need to rewind the pups in too but it's not high on my priority list right now.

[Mossman]

And any pickup winder will tell you, the more you overwind a pickup, especially with thinner wire, you'll end up with more mud and extra bass.

I always wanted to try one of those smaller casinos but never did.
I have a Chinese casino that I need to rewind the pups in too but it's not high on my priority list right now.

Yeah, I can imagine it's not. Going to war with those welds wouldn't be high on my list of priorities, either.

I think they wind these pickups to sound loud and proud when you're in the Guitar Center... You know... for the kids. Kids don't want "chimey" guitars... But then there's all that feedback... I dunno... Corporate decisions.

Be warned, the Casino Coupe also has the same junk pickups as the standard Casino, which doesn't make any sense either, since they're putting Pros in the 339. Maybe it's because those pickups have the word: "Classic" in the name. But there ain't nothing "classic" about the way they sound... I oughta write them an angry letter.

--- Your Classic P90s SUCK! Stop it!